Ohio

Ohio: FBI probe of voting rights group expands to include an affiliated national advocacy network | Dion Nissenbaum/Votebeat

Federal officials have served a subpoena on one of the nation’s leading nonprofit voter outreach groups, which has financially supported the Ohio election advocacy group at the center of a deepening investigation by the Trump administration, according to a source familiar with the probe. The FBI served the subpoena on America Votes, a Washington-based organization founded by prominent Democratic leaders that works to turn out voters nationwide, the sources said. America Votes, which has given the Ohio Organizing Collaborative at least $500,000 in recent years, according to its tax filings, issued a statement Wednesday confirming it had received a subpoena “asking for basic records related to funding of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. We have been informed America Votes is not a target of the investigation.” The subpoena signals a broader FBI investigation into the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a statewide nonprofit group founded in 2007 that works on voting rights efforts. The Ohio Organizing Collaborative’s sister organization, Ohio Organizing Campaign, said it registered nearly 160,000 Ohio voters in 2024, describing the effort as the largest independent voter registration program in the country. Read Article

New Ohio Election Integrity Commission begins to take shape | Nick Evans/Ohio Capital Journal

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has tapped leadership for the new Ohio Election Integrity Commission. As part of last summer’s budget, state lawmakers axed the state’s existing independent campaign watchdog and replaced it with a new office under the secretary’s control. As of Jan. 1, the Ohio Elections Commission hands the reins to the Ohio Election Integrity Commission. The board’s membership shrinks from seven to five, and instead of a bipartisan panel selecting a nonpartisan colleague, all commissioners will be chosen by state leaders. To start, former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Terrence O’Donnell will lead the commission on an interim basis, after which former U.S. Attorney D. Michael Crites will take over. Crites previously chaired the Ohio Elections Commission after getting appointed to the panel by Gov. Jon Kasich. Read Article

Ohio bill cutting grace period to return absentee ballots headed to Governor | Karen Kasler/The Statehouse News Bureau

A bill to require all absentee ballots arrive at boards of elections by election day—eliminating the four day grace period in current law--is headed to Gov. Mike DeWine. But while he signs most bills that come to him, he's suggested it’s not certain that he’ll sign this one. Republican backers have said Senate Bill 293 is needed because ballots need to be at boards of elections on election night to have an unofficial count as soon as possible. And they've noted that Attorney General Dave Yost received a letter from the Department of Justice in September, warning that Ohio could face a federal lawsuit following an executive order Trump issued in March stating that there is "a uniform and nondiscriminatory ballot receipt deadline of Election Day for all methods of voting", with ballots from military and overseas voters exempted. But Democrats said eliminating the four-day grace period doesn’t do anything to stop voter fraud, which is already extremely rare. And they've said thousands of ballots would have been thrown out last year if this bill would have been law then. Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose did confirm that, telling a House committee that around 8,000 ballots were received after election day in November 2024, but he noted that was 0.012% of the total number of ballots cast. Read Article

Ohio’s mail-in absentee ballot grace period on the chopping block following Senate vote | Avery Kreemer/Dayton Daily News

The Ohio House is set to consider a GOP-backed bill that would eliminate the state’s four-day, post-election grace period for mail-in absentee ballots to get delivered, a period that allowed hundreds of Miami Valley ballots to be counted in the 2024 presidential election. Senate Bill 293, set to be evaluated by the House General Government Committee after easily clearing the Senate with near-unanimous Republican support, would require domestic absentee ballots in future elections be delivered to local boards of elections by the time polls close. Current law allows absentee ballots to be delivered by mail up to four days after election day, as long as those ballots were postmarked on the eve of the election, at least. Ohio’s grace period used to be 10 days before it was pared down. Read Article

Ohio: The Long Road to Election Day | Kendall Verhovek/Brennan Center for Justice

Tonya Wichman: We’re a smaller county so we only have two full-time people on staff that work alongside part-time clerks. Our role here is a little bit different than a large county that has departments for everything. But like every other county, we work in bipartisan teams. We can’t even open doors in Ohio without a member of the opposite party. The two of us personally run every aspect of an election. That includes voter registration, programming the ballot and the poll books, working through the new security implementations, setting up polling locations, and more. Throughout the year, we do list maintenance to remove people who pass away. We also process petitions for anyone that wants to be on the ballot, verify signatures for candidate petitions, and go through the legal details with the prosecutor’s office to make sure everything lines up with the state’s election code. We also take continuing education programs to make sure we learn how to make things more efficient and better for our voters. So when people ask, “Do you just work two days a year?” the answer is, “No, we spend the entire year getting ready for the next election.” Even right now, we’re working on next year’s May primary — and we started back in July. Read Article

Ohio GOP proposes restrictions on mail-in ballot deadline, prompting concern from veterans | Morgan Trau/Ohio Capital Journal

Ohio Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation that would restrict the mail-in deadline, requiring all absentee ballots to be received by elections officials by the time polls close. Some veterans raised concerns that this could prevent military and overseas ballots from being counted. “It’s a feeling that when your country calls you, you go,” Army veteran Adam Miller said. Joining the military is one of the most patriotic things an Ohioan can do, he said, but so is participating in the democratic process. “Being able to cast your vote is one of the fundamental freedoms that patriots fought for,” he said. When you are deployed overseas or in another country, the only way to vote is by mail — which Miller did when he was fighting in the Middle East. Read Article

Ohio: Cuyahoga County elections machines damaged by leaky garage at new headquarters; ballots safe | Kaitlin Durbin/Cleveland Plain Dealer

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections just settled into its new headquarters this summer, but it has already encountered a serious problem: rainwater and crumbling cement in the parking garage damaged two expensive machines that process mail-in ballots. First, the water and debris damaged a sensor and the control arms on one of the machines, which sorts ballots by municipality and precinct while capturing voters’ signatures for verification. That machine now has to be sent out for repairs, costing an estimated $20,000-26,000, Deputy Director Anthony Kaloger told BOE Board members during a Monday meeting. Then, cement flakes and water infiltrated the second machine over Labor Day weekend, despite staff attempting to cover the machines with carport tents. The leaks didn’t interfere with voting in Tuesday’s Primary Election, thanks to staff workarounds and relatively low turnout, Kaloger assured: “Not one ballot was damaged. Not one voter was disenfranchised,” he said. But he said staff also doesn’t want to risk equipment failures during busier elections. Even if the garage could be repaired to assure “reasonable dryness,” Kaloger said, that’s not enough to safeguard the ballots and the county’s investment in the machines, which each cost about $250,000. “At this point we had seen enough,” Kaloger said. “You can’t park a Jaguar in a barn.” Read Article

Ohio’s anti-tech rural counties work to ban voting machines for “Flintstones” hand-counting | Cleveland Plain Dealer

A growing movement in rural Ohio counties is pushing to abandon modern voting technology in favor of hand-counted paper ballots, sparking criticism of those who would debilitate election security and accuracy. Friday’s episode of Today in Ohio blasted the idea. “It would be a disaster if we let idiots start to set policy. People who don’t understand science, so they just want to reject it,” said Chris Quinn during the discussion. “This is a backward way of thinking. And really, I wish we had a time machine so we could ship them back to the Middle Ages, which is where they want to be.” The push is coming from a group calling themselves the “Coalition of Concerned Voters” in Monroe and Seneca counties, who are fighting to get a local referendum on the ballot that would replace electronic voting machines with hand-counted paper ballots. Their argument? Ohioans never really had a say in adopting machines in the first place, and they don’t trust the audit process that samples approximately 5 percent of ballots. Read Article

Ohio: Electronic poll pads will be back for November election | Mary Ann Grier/ Morning Journal

The Columbiana County Board of Elections will be back to using the electronic poll pads to check voter signatures against IDs during the Nov. 4 general election. County Board of Elections Director Kim Fusco reported during the election board meeting on Tuesday that during the recent elections conference in Columbus, which board members also attended, they learned the reason why they couldn’t use the electronic poll pads for the May 2025 primary. She said state officials explained that it was due to some possible security breach in another county, Perry County, saying it sounded to her like they were saying it could have been a hacker, an electrical short in the poll pads or a ghost. Read Article

Ohio secretary of state pushes new security directive for county election boards | Colin Wood/StateScoop

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose on Monday announced a new security directive for the state’s 88 boards of elections, targeting a broad range of protocols and security controls designed to safeguard election systems that enjoy diminished federal support. In a May 29 directive, LaRose directs the state’s county boards of elections to strengthen their physical security, bolster their cybersecurity practices and comply with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. The directive, the sixth to come from LaRose since he took office in 2019, covers a broad swath of tasks, from implementing cybersecurity awareness training to ensuring websites can withstand heavy traffic. He notes in the directive that while similar work had previously been supported by federal funding from the Help America Vote Act, such funding sources can no longer be consistently relied upon. Instead, LaRose wrote, he’s asking Gov. Mike DeWine and the state legislature for funds — $10,000 per county — so counties will be able to implement his directive. Read Article

Ohio: Security concern forces half of state’s counties to use paper pollbooks for May election | Anna Staver/The Cleveland Plain Dealer

A security violation involving an electronic pollbook in Perry County is prompting half of Ohio counties to check voters in using paper pollbooks for the May 6 election. The device--a tablet-style electronic similar to an iPad--was intended to check voters in on Election Day. Perry County never used it for an election. Instead, local officials reported irregularities that “violated Ohio’s election security standards. I’ve directed our Election Integrity Unit and cybersecurity team to work with the Perry County Board of Elections to analyze the equipment purchased by the board... ,” Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in a statement. “As an added precaution, I’m directing the boards of elections who use this specific style of pollbook to use paper pollbooks for the May election.” Read Article

Ohio Secretary of State orders investigation of Perry County electronic pollbook | Perry County Tribune

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has announced the investigation of a voter check-in tablet purchased by the Perry County Board of Elections. County Elections Board Director Jamie Snider told The Perry County Tribune that her office noticed some “irregular activity that we needed to report, and that was done immediately when we were advised it was happening.” She said the devices “were fresh out of the box, brand new. We just purchased them in December, received them in February, and as we were unboxing them, we noticed some things on them that were out of the norm. So we reported it to the state like we should have.” Read Article

Ohio GOP stoked fears of non-citizen voting. In reality, it’s rare | Julie Carr Smith/Associated Press

Before the November presidential election, Ohio’s secretary of state and attorney general announced investigations into potential voter fraud that included people suspected of casting ballots even though they were not U.S. citizens. It coincided with a national Republican messaging strategy warning that potentially thousands of ineligible voters would be voting. “The right to vote is sacred,” Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, said in a statement at the time. “If you’re not a U.S. citizen, it’s illegal to vote -– whether you thought you were allowed to or not. You will be held accountable.” In the end, their efforts led to just a handful of cases. Read Article

What Ohio voters need to know about what happens before and after casting your ballot | Megan Henry/Ohio Capital Journal

Election Day is one week away and the League of Women Voters of Ohio recently hosted a webinar that went over the state’s post-election procedures to highlight the security of elections and the safety mechanisms in place when handling ballots and verifying results. The results of the election are unofficial until Secretary of State Frank LaRose certifies the election results after they are officially submitted by county boards of elections. “Election night is not results night, and that’s okay,” said Jessica King, Verified Voting’s senior policy associate. “Election officials have their processes and procedures that they’re going to follow, and again, we need to give them that space and time to do that.” Read Article

Ohio election administrators say their workers are overworked, underpaid, and strained by attacks | Susan Tebben/Ohio Capital Journal

Ohio’s local election workers are overworked, underpaid and strained by conspiratorial attacks, and the state could be doing more to leave politics out of the election process, according to a voting rights group who talked with local election administrators. All Voting is Local Ohio partnered with research firm Public Circle, LLC, to study the evolution of the work election administrators at the local level do as they prepare for another highly-contested election. “Today, these professionals are straining under the weight of back-to-back statewide special elections and rhetorical attacks on their trustworthiness, character and patriotism,” the report stated. Read Article

Ohio: Election security group praises cybersecurity efforts while chiding eleventh hour voting changes | Nick Evans/Ohio Capital Journal

The Center for Election Innovation & Research has some good news and a few pointed critiques ahead of this November’s election. In a survey of states’ efforts to protect their voter registration databases from cyber-attacks, the group found election administrators have made great strides in protecting the voter rolls from outside threats. CEIR executive director David Becker explained that in 2016, Russian actors briefly gained access to Illinois’s voter registration database. His organization has been surveying states about security protocols every federal election cycle since. “Our nation and the 50 states are doing a very good job with voter registration database security,” he explained. “I think it’s one of the reasons that we’ve seen, to my knowledge, no real successful efforts to breach voter registration databases over the last several election cycles after the 2016 wakeup call.” But at the same time election officials are thwarting threats from without, they’re also undermining voter confidence from within through last-minute, legally dubious audits and policy changes. Read Article

Ohio law violates rights of voters with disabilities, judge says | Haley BeMiller/Columbus Dispatch

Ohio's election law violates the rights of people with disabilities who rely on caregivers or family members to return their absentee ballots, a federal judge ruled Monday. The decision came down in a lawsuit that challenged a rule allowing only certain family members to help relatives who are hospitalized or homebound because of an illness or disability. While the list includes spouses, parents, siblings and grandparents, the state does not allow grandchildren or caretakers to handle another person's absentee ballot. U.S. District Judge Bridget Meehan Brennan said that violates the federal Voting Rights Act, which allows voters with disabilities to get help from anyone except their employer or union representative. Her decision means Ohio's law can no longer be enforced. Read Article

Ohio voter advocates warn group is making troubling challenges, ask Secretary of State to guide counties | Susan Tebben/Ohio Capital Journal

Voting rights advocacy organizations are calling on the Ohio Secretary of State to create consistency within the county boards of elections when it comes to voter registration challenges. The urgency comes in particular because of one group, the Ohio Election Integrity Network, which advocates say has been approaching multiple Ohio counties with lists of hundreds of voters they say are ineligible to vote in Ohio and should be removed from rolls. The way in which they are approaching county boards goes against the existing process of maintaining voting rolls, elections advocates say. “Really all of it is centered around poking holes in the election systems and the processes we’ve been using,” said Kelly Dufour, voting and elections manager for Common Cause Ohio. Read Article

Ohio Republican lawmakers working on sweeping changes to election administration | Nick Evans/Ohio Capital Journal

Legislation in the Ohio House and Senate would make sweeping changes to the way Ohioans vote and how those votes are counted. Despite sterling post-election audits in Ohio and the arrival last year of strict new photo voter ID requirements, backers insist more must be done to secure the state’s elections. Among their demands are provisions allowing hand-counted ballots, and new voting machine requirements that could force counties across the state to replace the voting machines they have. Moreover, certified voting machines don’t exist that would meet the bill’s standards, and hand-counting has been shown to be more time-consuming and less accurate than the currently certified voting machines that do exist. The bill would also extend photo ID requirements to absentee voting — making voters include a photocopy of their ID with their completed ballot. And the drafters have plans for in-person voting as well. The bill directs county boards to include a voters’ photograph in the pollbook, so poll workers won’t simply compare a photo ID to person standing in front of them, but also to a photo on file from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Read Article

Ohio elections officials group opposes bill to change laws on voting machines, counting ballots | Karen Kasler/The Statehouse News Bureau

The Republican sponsor of a bill that makes a lot of changes to voting laws says it’s about stopping hackers and blocking cybersecurity threats. But the group that represents the people who would have to put those changes into place is solidly against the bill. House Bill 472 would make changes in the name of improving election security in Ohio, in a system that even the sponsors call the "gold standard" for elections. But they’ve so concerned elections officials that the trustees for the bipartisan Ohio Association of Elections Officials voted unanimously to oppose it. “We agree with the sponsors that we want to have safe and secure elections in Ohio," said Aaron Ockerman, executive director of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials. "But unfortunately, we also recognize that many of the provisions that are contained in the bill actually move us in the wrong direction.” Read Article

Ohio Republican bill would require replacement of voting machines, allow hand-counting of ballots | Andrew J. Tobias/Cleveland Plain Dealer

>Republican state lawmakers are considering a sweeping overhaul of Ohio’s voting system that is pitting the state’s bipartisan elections officials against a right-wing citizen’s group that echoes arguments made by advocates of the widely rejected theory that the 2020 presidential election was marred by widespread fraud. House Bill 472 would require the state to replace all its voting machines while allowing citizens to propose requiring hand-counting of elections ballots on a county-by-county basis, something elections officials say would result in delayed and less accurate election results. It also would newly require Ohioans to show a photo ID to register to vote – not just to cast a ballot like under current law – and expand a recently passed voter ID requirement to also apply to mail-in voting – a carve out that was retained in the last elections overhaul lawmakers passed in late 2022. Read Article

Ohio House passes Biden ballot fix bill despite DNC remedy | Isabella Murray/ABC

Ohio's state House passed two bills on Thursday -- one of which ensures President Joe Biden appears on the state's general election ballot in November despite the Democratic National Committee's announcement earlier this week that they would remedy the issue on its own. The ballot bill delivers a temporary extension to the state's current ballot certification deadline of Aug. 7. Democrats were set to nominate Biden at the party's convention, which starts Aug. 19 -- meaning Biden wouldn't be eligible to make it on the Ohio ballot given the earlier August deadline. More than 30 Republicans joined Democrats in passing that bill, which is now superfluous after the national party announced they'd virtually nominate the president ahead of Ohio's certification cutoff. Read Article

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine calls for lawmakers to get Joe Biden on ballot. Calls situation ‘absurd’. | Anthony Shoemaker and Erin Glynn/Columbus Dispatch

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called for a special session of the Legislature to get President Joe Biden on the November ballot. The special session will begin Tuesday, May 28. During an unexpected press conference on Thursday, DeWine called on lawmakers to pass legislation to get Biden on the ballot and to prohibit campaign spending by foreign citizens on ballot issues. DeWine ordered the special session under Article III, Section 8 of the Ohio Constitution. The issue keeping Biden off the ballot is because the current law says Ohio officials must certify the November ballot on Aug. 7, 90 days before the election, but Biden won't be nominated until the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19 in Chicago. Read Article

Ohio: Why Biden isn’t on the November ballot — yet | Caroline Vakil/The Hill

Ohio state legislators are scrambling to get President Biden on the November ballot after members failed to break a legislative impasse this week.  State law says presidential candidates need to be certified with the state 90 days before the November election; this year, that date is Aug. 7. But Democrats are on track to miss that goal, given Biden is set to be formally nominated during the Democratic National Convention, which begins Aug. 19. Legislators in the state Senate and state House worked on competing proposals, but efforts to pass them through the state Capitol have stalled — raising questions around what steps members will take next to make sure Biden gets onto the ballot in the coming months. Read Article

Ohio bill on voting law changes would require security reviews, allow hand-counting of ballots | Karen Kasler/Statehouse News Bureau

A group of conservative Republicans in the Ohio House is pushing for a bill, HB 472, aiming to overhaul state election laws to enhance security, including measures like requiring voter ID, changing early voting procedures, and permitting hand-counting of ballots. Critics argue that the bill's measures, such as requiring voter ID and restricting early voting procedures, are thinly veiled attempts at voter suppression. They contend that the bill's provisions, including limiting options for voter identification and delaying ballot scanning, could disenfranchise voters and undermine the democratic process. Additionally, concerns have been raised about the bill's potential to exacerbate disparities in access to voting, particularly among marginalized communities. Read Article

Ohio Supreme Court to hear open meetings lawsuit centered on Stark County voting machines | Robert Wang/Canton Repository

The Ohio Supreme Court is set to hear arguments regarding whether the Stark County Board of Elections violated the state's Open Meetings Act by privately deliberating the purchase of Dominion voting machines. Look Ahead America, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, argues that such closed-door meetings hinder the public's right to know about officials' decision-making processes. However, even if Look Ahead America wins, it won't reverse Stark County's acquisition and use of 1,450 Dominion Voting Machines ICX touch-screen machines, as the funding and contract for the purchase were authorized by the Stark County commissioners. Read Article

Ohio: Pickaway County unofficial election results inaccurate, include pre-election test vote data | Jim Wilhelm/Columbus Dispatch

The Pickaway County Board of Elections revealed discrepancies in the unofficial results of the March 19 primary election, clarifying that these errors stemmed from a USB flash drive used during pre-election logic and accuracy testing being mistakenly left in a tabulation computer, thus incorporating test data into the unofficial vote count. This mistake inflated absentee vote totals, affecting the reported results. While the board assures that the official outcomes of contests remain unaffected, they emphasize the importance of providing accurate vote counts and express their commitment to rectify the situation and prevent similar errors in the future. Read Article

Ohio: Misinformation is flowing ahead of abortion vote. Some is coming from a legislative website. | Julie Carr Smyth and Christine Fernando/Associated Press

The official government website of the Republican-controlled Ohio Senate is featuring inflammatory language opposing a reproductive rights measure, which is typically seen in contentious campaign initiatives. The messaging, warning of extreme scenarios related to the measure, is not only promoted by anti-abortion groups but is also present on the government website. This content, published on the "On The Record" blog, is impacting online search results for information about the reproductive rights measure, Issue 1, which is set to be voted on by Ohio citizens on November 7. The blog is presented as an "online newsroom" providing perspectives not covered by mainstream news outlets, and includes content from Republican state senators and conservative figures. Experts consider this effort by Republican lawmakers to be unprecedented, as it aims to influence public perception through a government platform, potentially misguiding voters seeking objective information. Read Article

Ohio: Boards of elections use different approaches, similar voting equipment | Roger LaPointe/Fremont News-Messenger

Sandusky and Ottawa counties have different approaches to election equipment, but both emphasize the importance of their election board members in ensuring secure and accurate voting. Sandusky County, a smaller rural county, prefers paper ballots and uses a combination of hand-marked paper ballots and ballot marking devices with optical scanning for mailed ballots. They have a ballot marking device available for disabled individuals but mostly rely on paper ballots. Ottawa County, with approximately 30,000 registered voters, employs a hybrid system using both tabletop and kiosk-type ExpressVote units for ballot marking. They use a commercial electronic poll book for tabulation, ensuring security and privacy in the voting process. Both counties highlight the dedication and collaboration of their bipartisan election boards as a key factor in maintaining trust in the electoral process. Read Article

Ohio: Trump ‘White House in waiting’ helped develop voting bill touted as model for states | Zachary Roth/Ohio Capital Journal

A new bill announced by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose to standardize and modernize state voting records is being welcomed by election administrators and some voter advocates, who say it could increase transparency and confidence in elections. But the first-of-its-kind legislation was developed with help from a think tank that is leading the charge nationally for more restrictive voting rules and has been called a “White House in waiting” for a second Trump administration. The bill also is winning praise from conservative activists who have spread fear about illegal voting as part of an effort to pressure election officials to more aggressively purge voter rolls. The measure, known as the Data Analysis Transparency Archive (DATA) Act, could offer a glimpse of a future conservative agenda on voting issues. At a Feb. 22 press conference announcing the bill, LaRose, a Republican, thanked the America First Policy Institute for “helping with the development” of the legislation. AFPI reportedly aims to create a policy platform for former President Donald Trump.  A spokesman for LaRose did not respond to an inquiry about AFPI’s role in developing the bill. But Hilton Beckham, AFPI’s director of communications, said via email that the group did not write the bill. Beckham said it came out of an AFPI report released last year, which found that many local election offices are failing to retain election data as required by law, and that in many counties, the total number of ballots cast doesn’t match up with the total number of registered voters who cast ballots. Full Article: Trump ‘White House in waiting’ helped develop Ohio voting bill touted as model for states - Ohio Capital Journal